A media veteran's look at what's right with what we write, read, hear and see, and what's dreadfully wrong.

Monday, February 02, 2015

Nationwide Is Not on the Side of Common Sense

Explain Away All You Want, But the Buzzkill Still Lingers

Now that we're in the midst of Dead Kid-Gate, Nationwide Insurance has come out with a defense, of sorts, of its Debbie Downer of an ad for yesterday's Super Bowl. It's like Pete Carroll made the media buy.

We knew the ad would spur a variety of reactions. In fact, thousands of people visited MakeSafeHappen.com, a new website to help educate parents and caregivers with information and resources in an effort to make their homes safer and avoid a potential injury or death. Nationwide has been working with experts for more than 60 years to make homes safer. While some did not care for the ad, we hope it served to begin a dialogue to make safe happen for children everywhere.”

Noble intentions are swell. But during the Super Bowl? At $4.5 million a spot? And after a funny Nationwide ad with Mindy Kaling had just aired?

On any other day, you would have had parents everywhere sprinting for the Kleenex. Instead, you just pissed them off, including those who had to explain what happened to their kids.

The dialogue Nationwide so desperately wanted about an important topic is overshadowed by the one about the incredibly bad judgment of the company and its ad agency.

That is why we have started a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the film so we can remember and honor the horrible past.

Could you please help us and share this important campaign on your site?

The "Hide and Seek" movie tells the story which has two levels – superficial and substantial. The title and the fact that the main characters are two children allow us to mistakenly conclude that the movie refers only to a trivial childhood fun. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a story about fear, war traumas and the strength of motherly love, which is the strongest of feelings

We started working on "Hide and Seek" nearly three years ago. It is based on facts and a truly moving script. In a universal way it shows the consequences of anti-semitism which is becoming more common in modern Europe and also around the world. The Writer and the director Paweł Jóźwik is not afraid to talk about this awkward topic. Some people would rather stay silent. His difficult, but very important project attracted many well-known Polish artists. Meny prominent actors expressed their willingness to participate in the film, among others: Agnieszka Grochowska, Wojciech Zielinski, Mariusz Drężek or Henryk Niebudek. Jan Kidawa – Błoński, a valued polish film director became the artistic supervisor of the project. Leszek Rybarczyk from the Odeon Studio supervised the film production. Our friends guaranteed us help on the set thanks to whom the filming costs were significantly reduced. Unfortunately not to zero. This is the reason of taking up the challenge called crowdfundingowa campaign.

The filming is expensive so the aim of the campaign is to collect $ 35,000, which will be used to create epoch-making stage design, costumes and equipment rental for 10 days of shooting. The subject is historical and extremely gentle, stirrs up strong feelings and conflicting emotions. This is the main reason, why most of the potential sponsors refused to cooperate. In consequence, the filmmakers decided to start a crowdfunding campaign. We would like to give each of us chance to evaluate idividually and support the project through the indiegogo.com portal. You can find more details about the movie on the campaign website Indiegogo.